So I did. It wasn't clear at this point if, or where, these stories would ever be published, but I found that I enjoyed the process of writing. When I had a few stories completed, I got the idea of a newspaper column.

First I brought the idea to the Burlington Free Press. A senior editor - who shall remain nameless - reviewed the material, and said, "Hey, this stuff is great! We'd love to print it. We won't pay you anything, but we'd love to use it."

Next, I presented it to Seven Days, which was at that point a relatively new addition to the local scene. One of the publishers said this to me (and I'm paraphrasing, but this was the gist): "Your writing is interesting, but your thinking is way too grandiose. Everyone has ideas for a column. What makes you think - a guy who's never before been published - that you can start a column? Be realistic; come up with a single piece, and we might consider running it at some point."

I guess I was too thick to be chastened, so I then brought the column idea to Shay Totten, who was at that time the wunderkind editor of The Vermont Times. He loved it, and suggested that his paper publish three of the stories in three issues and ask for feedback from the public. This happened (the first column ran on April 23, 1997), the feedback was excellent and Hackie began as a regular fortnightly feature. From the volume of the fan mail, it was evident that it had found a broad audience, and in 1999 it even won a first-place New England Press Association award.

The column ran in The Vermont Times until February 23, 2000. At that time, Shay left as editor, and I was interested again in writing for Seven Days, which by that period had established itself as a hugely-successful alternative weekly newspaper. As fate would have it, the publishers were now interested in me as well, as many of their readers were Hackie fans, and had been encouraging them to pick up the column. The first Hackie column in Seven Days ran on March 15, 2000, where it appears to this day . . . . .